


Fly Away

by dancewithme19



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Once Upon a Time Fusion, Disney, Ella Enchanted, Ever After (film), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2235996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancewithme19/pseuds/dancewithme19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Cinderella AU mash-up extravaganza, complete with a wicked step-family, a charming prince, and an eccentric fairy godmother. Blaine's dearest wish, besides escaping his life of forced servitude, is to find true love. But wishes don't come for free, and Blaine might just discover that the force of his will is stronger than any magic. Told through five different adaptations: Disney’s Cinderella, Ever After, Once Upon a Time, Into the Woods, and Ella Enchanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cinderella

Once upon a time…

&&&&&

Blaine is lost in dreams of a life he doesn’t lead. Dancing in the arms of a well-dressed man, the eyes of the entire kingdom on them. “Oh, what a handsome couple,” they seem to say, and for once Blaine feels that it’s true. His partner is tall, and strong, and looking at Blaine with love in his eyes. 

It’s a beautiful dream.

And then he feels it, the telltale sign that the sun has risen above the horizon. Birdsong, chortled into his ear and punctuated with gentle nips to the curling locks of his hair. Blaine is awake in an instant, and his mood sours just as quickly. He tries not to take it out on his friends – they’re only trying to help, after all. And he hasn’t forgotten the punishment that would await him, were he to stay abed the way he truly wants.

Just once, he’d love to finish a dream. They always seem to end before he gets to _happily ever after_.

He stretches and murmurs his greetings. The canaries can’t talk back, but their melodious little voices do seem to carry some meaning, borne out in the gleam of their bright, intelligent eyes. They tell him of the beautiful day beginning just beyond his open window and chide him for the frown tugging his lips down in the corners.

“Oh, you’d be frowning, too, if your dreams had been interrupted.”

Blaine hops out of bed and takes in the sunrise, pink and orange and reflecting prettily off of the castle windows. Its tall towers seem to glow, like a beacon in the distance. He sighs happily. This, at least, they cannot take away. A moment of beauty.

He feels the light pressure of feet, alighting onto his shoulder. His favorite, though he knows he shouldn’t have one, a tiny yellow thing he’s named Pavarotti. The bird nuzzles his head against Blaine’s neck and chirps quizzically.

“What was I dreaming about?” Blaine sighs again, wistfully this time. “Oh, love, I suppose.”

Pavarotti sings a charming little tune in sympathy. Blaine hums it back, and, soon enough, they’re singing a duet about dreams and wishes into the fresh morning air. The others join in, flitting around the room in perfect time, like a waltz at a grand ball. A chorus of bluebirds lights on the windowsill, and the house mice poke their sleepy heads through the holes in the wall to add their little voices in harmony.

The song winds down. Blaine strokes Pavarotti softly beneath his beak. Pavarotti coos his appreciation.

“I suppose you know what it’s like to be caged, don’t you?” murmurs Blaine. “What I wouldn’t give for wings to fly away.”

The church bell chimes in the distance.

“What a killjoy, huh Pavarotti?” mutters Blaine. Pavarotti chirps his agreement and nips affectionately at Blaine’s ear. He joins the others – neatening Blaine’s bed, laying out his clothes for the day, helping to draw his bath. Blaine is very grateful for the help, knowing that the creatures do it not out of a sense of duty, or pity, but because they truly care for him. Completing his daily chores to his stepmother’s exacting standards would be nearly impossible without them.

He hums as he prepares for his day, determined to meet today’s challenges with a smile on his face. He refuses to let the cruelty of his stepfamily turn him into someone he isn’t.

Blaine stops and looks in the mirror briefly before heading downstairs. His clothes are clean and wrinkle-free, but there are patches at the elbows and knees, and loose threads at the wrists. There isn’t anything he can do about that now – or ever, until the cloth is worn beyond repair. His stepmother is unlikely to waste her precious money on fabric unless it’s to fashion Hunter yet another waistcoat that will be worn once and abandoned to the back of his closet.

Blaine’s hair, at least, is neat and glossy, tamed with his homemade pomade. He won’t allow his stepmother to take this piece of his dignity, at least.

He throws a smile at his reflection, then heads down to the kitchen, his friends trailing behind.

Mr. Puss is sleeping when he arrives, of course. If it were up to Blaine, he’d let the lazy cat be, but he has his orders. He fills Mr. Puss’ bowl with food and murmurs an unnecessary warning to his friends.

“Stay back. He’s quicker than he looks.”

The mice scurry away, out to the barn where the other animals are just starting to awaken, the birds flapping after them – all save Pavarotti, who perches stubbornly on Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine strokes a finger down his back, between his wings.

“Well, if you’re sure,” he says. Pavarotti chirps in confirmation. He says he isn’t afraid, but Blaine knows better. He remembers just how terrorized the poor bird was when Blaine freed him from the ornate golden cage in Sugar’s room. Blaine had taken a beating for daring to do it, but he couldn’t bear to see the poor thing tormented by Hunter’s beast of a pet. “You’re very brave,” he says admiringly. Pavarotti butts his head against Blaine’s ear.

Mr. Puss looks so deceptively sweet and peaceful in sleep. Blaine nudges him gently with his foot.

“Time to get up,” he sings softly.

Mr. Puss wakes with a hiss, swiping his claws at Blaine’s shoe. The leather is thick enough to protect him, but Pavarotti shifts uneasily.

“Hey, now, none of that,” scolds Blaine. “I’ve left you food in your bowl, you have nothing to complain about. Let’s see if we can’t all get along today, shall we?”

He knows better than to attempt to pet the old tom cat – he’s got enough scars on his hand to remind him, should he forget. Mr. Puss sniffs disdainfully and saunters over to his food bowl, tail flicking irritably.

“I guess that’s a no, then.”

Blaine makes quick work of the rest of the feedings. He dallies only to scratch Sammy behind his floppy golden ears and accept his thank you kisses. He takes a circuit around the barnyard as the animals happily munch, making sure everyone gets their fair share, then returns to the kitchen to start breakfast. Pavarotti and the other canaries help him get the trays ready while Mr. Puss lurks and generally makes a nuisance of himself.

Blaine is just pouring the tea when those dratted bells start going off.

“Blaine!” He hears, traveling all the way from behind closed doors three flights above him.

“Hold on,” he mutters. “I’m coming, no need to yell.”

The jangling only increases. “Blaaaaaaine!”

He sighs. He’d love to crawl back into bed, revisit that lovely dream and the lovely feeling that accompanied it, but he can’t. All he can do is keep his head up and wish.

_A dream is a wish your heart makes…_

Someday, he’ll fly away.


	2. Ever After

Blaine could kill Sam. He really, really, could. He’s pretty sure he’s never run as fast in his life as he is now, trying to beat his Highness – _Kurt_ – back to the house with enough time to make himself look presentable.

Then again, if it weren’t for Sam, Blaine wouldn’t be seeing Kurt at all today. He’d still be back in that field, flying Signora Pierce’s contraption and redoubling his efforts to convince Sam that he’d be perfectly happy to watch Kurt wed Blaine’s stepbrother.

Perhaps he can find it within himself to be grateful.

He flies through the back doors, calling for Tina and Jan as he rushes up the stairs to retrieve the trunk of treasures left to him by his father: a sheaf of music – his father’s favorite sonatas – a child-sized wooden flute, carved specially for Blaine’s eighth birthday, and three of his finest doublets. Blaine had to act quickly to save these last, stealing them from his father’s wardrobe before his stepmother had a chance to get her greedy hands on them. She knows about them, he’s sure, knows about every stitch of clothing and every ounce of silver under their roof, but she’s never said a word. He’s always taken it as proof that she has some grain of kindness still stuck in her heart.

He pulls out a doublet in brocade the color of a robin’s egg. It’s his favorite, even if the cut is a little old-fashioned.

Tina and Jan leave him to change clothes in private, taking it upon themselves to locate a pair of boots in his size and pilfer from Hunter’s stores of pomade. He isn’t quite sure how they manage it, but he’s fully dressed and neatened and only slightly out of breath when the clomping of hooves in the courtyard makes the prince’s presence known. Blaine kisses the two ladies soundly on the cheek.

“Thank you, thank you,” he murmurs with utter sincerity, and he’s at the door before his Highness even has a chance to knock.

The prince looks slightly startled at Blaine’s abrupt appearance.

“Your Highness,” says Blaine brightly. “What an unexpected surprise.”

He can only imagine the expression on Tina’s face at that particular understatement.

Kurt’s expression has shifted to warm-eyed happiness. Blaine resists the urge to reach up and check his hair.

“Comte. What a pleasure to find you here. Alone. Do you…not attend church?”

Blaine pauses. He does not wish to cause offense.

“I find that my faith is better served elsewhere.”

A small smile curls at Kurt’s lips.

“I myself am not a pious man. I was just on my way to the monastery, actually – a seeming contradiction, I know, but the Franciscans have the most beautiful organ, and I thought – I know how much you love to play. I wonder if you would join me?”

He looks so sweetly hopeful. There is really only one answer that Blaine can give.

“It would be an honor.”

Blaine watches with no small amount of wonder as Kurt dismisses his attendants and his carriage for the day and turns back to Blaine. “Today, I’m just Kurt,” he says, with a smile that Blaine feels right to his toes.

The journey is not long – at least, it does not feel long. They chat only occasionally, content to enjoy the warmth of the sun on their skin and the pleasant ease of each other’s company. There is a great deal unspoken between them, but now is not the time to unearth it.

They tour the library first, an astonishingly vast room filled to the brim with the painstaking work of generations. It’s enough to inspire awe, though not enough to capture Blaine’s heart, not when the promise of music is tugging it away. Kurt recounts the history of the place and shares with Blaine a few of his favorite selections. He’s eager and trying to hold it back, as if he fears Blaine will think him silly if he shows too much passion.

Kurt needn’t have worried – Blaine finds it something to be admired. He himself is giddy as a child and so grateful he could cry the very second they step foot inside the basilica. He has never seen an instrument so grand in his life. He can practically feel his soul lifting to the rafters on the wings of its long-faded melodies.

“It’s…beautiful,” he breathes. “Seeing this, I understand why people believe in heaven.”

Kurt catches his eye, curious. “What is it that touches you so?”

“I suppose…my father used to say that music gives voice to things that are beyond words.”

“He sounds like a wise man,” says Kurt ruefully.

“He was. A good man, too. He filled our home with music. I’m positive that my brother and I sang together more often than we conversed.”

“You have a brother?”

“He set sail for the Americas after our father passed. I have not heard from him since.”

Blaine can’t help the hint of melancholy that colors his voice. For all that he’s never been able to let go of the anger he holds for his brother, he still misses him. He can’t help but wonder – what if Cooper had stayed? Would Blaine still be stuck under his stepmother’s thumb, forced to watch as she runs their home into the ground?

“I’m sorry.” Kurt grasps his shoulder, tentative until Blaine shoots him a grateful smile.

“He had a beautiful voice,” he says wistfully. “Our father did, too.”

“As, I’m sure, do you.”

Blaine can feel his eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the flirtation Kurt’s voice.

He smiles.

“I do my best.”

“Would you like to play?” asks Kurt, as though it’s his to offer. He has that same look on his face, eager and earnest and hiding it beneath his dignity.

“I am no organist,” Blaine demurs.

But Kurt doesn’t take no for an answer. He takes Blaine by the hand and leads him aloft, watching with bright eyes as Blaine settles tentatively into place.

It’s not easy. It’s been years since Blaine played his mother’s modest harpsichord – he’s never even touched something this complex. And yet, the moment his fingers touch the keys, it stops mattering. The sound fills the room, fills all the empty spaces in his heart. His fingers find the notes as if he was born to it.

He closes his eyes and feels the music in his very bones.

It lingers in the air and in his body, even after he’s lifted his fingers reluctantly from the keys. Blaine feels…overwrought. His fingers are trembling finely, and there are tears ready to slip down his cheeks. He beams up at Kurt, because it isn’t sadness at all, but unbearable joy.

Kurt is looking at him as if he cannot look away.

“Nicolas,” he says, voice rough-hewn. “That was – how do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How do you live each day with such…passion, locked up inside you?”

“I know of no other way to live.”

Kurt looks away, then, stricken. Blaine reaches out on instinct and covers Kurt’s hand with his own.

“I used to play,” says Kurt, after a moment. He says it softly, shamefully, a confession. “I sang, too. I loved it.”

“Why did you stop?”

Kurt glances up, a bitterness in his eyes that isn’t for Blaine.

“I am to be king. I have duties.”

Blaine takes a firmer hold of Kurt’s hand and squeezes lightly.

“Sing with me,” he says on impulse.

“What?”

“Sing with me,” he repeats, attempting to persuade with his eyes.

Kurt looks suddenly shy. The sharp uprightness of his posture, the easy tilt of his chin, all of the markings of royalty that he bears with such pride, they soften into something boyish and uncertain. Blaine smiles at him encouragingly. Kurt visibly gathers his resolve.

“What shall we sing?” he says, a spark of challenge in his eyes.

Blaine grins.

It’s a simple song, a secular pastoral that Blaine’s father used to tell him was his mother’s favorite.

“We wooed to this song,” he’d say, ready with a laugh when Blaine wrinkled his little-boy nose.

Kurt doesn’t know the song, but he learns it quickly. Soon enough, they’re harmonizing, voices darting and flitting around the melody on hummingbird wings. Kurt’s voice is beautiful – high and clear as a bell, rounded out with warmth at the bottom of his range. It blends effortlessly with Blaine’s. They look into each other’s eyes, and it’s – it’s magic. It’s a connection unlike anything Blaine has felt, as if their hearts beat as one.

There’s a moment when it’s over, when their voices are still reverberating throughout the empty spaces around them, that Blaine thinks… But then Kurt blinks the daze away, and the moment is gone.

“We should be on our way,” he murmurs. “If we want to make it back before the last of the daylight.”

They ride slowly, barely an amble, and they talk. They trade stories – Blaine’s heavily edited, of course – and talk of Signora Pierce’s exploits, and generally pay far more attention to their conversation than they do to their path.

Which, of course, is how Blaine ends up at the top of a tall rock formation in his undershirt, scanning for landmarks. Kurt is below, ostensibly guarding their belongings.

“There it is!” calls Blaine, once he catches sight of it. “Back that way.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re up there and I’m stuck down here,” says Kurt sourly. “It is my castle, after all.”

Blaine laughs.

“Because you could fall and break your royal neck, and then where would we be?”

“You climb rocks, sing like a dream, rescue servants – is there anything you don’t do?”

“Fly.”

He closes his eyes, spreads his arms, tips his face toward the sun. For a moment it really feels as if he could take wing. He grins down at Kurt, who’s laughing at him amiably.

“Maybe you should come back down before you break your own neck!”

Blaine rolls his eyes good-naturedly and starts his descent. He’s barely made it two feet before he hears an alarming smack down below him, the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh. It’s followed quickly by a heavy thud – a body hitting the ground. Blaine twists around to look, heart racing with dread, but all he can see from this angle is a small group of ruffians watching and jeering at what is presumably a fight.

“Oh, not you again,” he hears Kurt mutter disdainfully, and it’s such a relief to hear his voice that Blaine’s knees go weak for a moment. He keeps climbing, more quickly than before, as quick as he can go without losing his footing. Kurt is outrageously outnumbered. Even still, he calls to Blaine in warning. “Stay aloft! There are games afoot.”

As if that would ever happen. It’s sweet that Kurt wants to protect him – foolhardy, but sweet – but Blaine’s father was an expert swordsman, and music wasn’t the only thing he taught his sons. If only Blaine had a weapon of his own…

He can hear the clash of swords below him, now, and the grunts of effort as they lunge and parry and twist away from each other. He can’t see what’s happening, and he can’t shut off his all-too-vivid imagination. It’s maddening.

Suddenly, a new voice calls up to him. He slows his descent, glances down. It’s one of the men with the jeering grins, lifting Blaine’s father’s doublet into the air by the tip of his sword.

“I thank you for your kind donation, sir,” says the man with a mocking bow.

Blaine’s blood boils.

“You will return my property to me,” he snaps, with every ounce of force that he possesses.

The man laughs and turns back to watch the action.

For once, Blaine is happy to be underestimated. He maneuvers himself into position, bides his time, and – there. He launches himself off the rock and knocks the man over, sword sent clattering to the ground. Blaine scrambles up, both faster and scrappier than his opponent, and manages to get the sword in his hand.

It’s at this point that the others seem to realize what’s happening, because Blaine has taken barely a step before he’s being restrained by two burly men, a knife held to his throat. He can feel the cold metal of the blade, just close enough to his flesh to draw blood should he dare to struggle. He drops the sword.

Kurt stops, too, drops his own sword and holds his hands up in surrender. He had the upper hand, had the other man backed up against the rock. Now his eyes are wide with the kind of fear Blaine knows you should never let your enemy see.

“Let him go!” he says imperiously. His voice doesn’t quiver, but Blaine can tell it takes a toll. “Your quarrel is with me.”

The man, the one who Blaine knocked to the ground, eyes him for a moment. He nods at his comrades.

“Release him,” he says.

They do, roughly.

Blaine takes a moment to catch his breath, take stock of the situation. Now that the fighting has been put on pause, he can see it clear as day – these men aren’t cruel. They’re desperate. They’re taking pains to hide it beneath their bravado, but Blaine knows how to read the signs.

“Friends,” he starts, and the skepticism is clear on all of their faces. Several of them are seconds away from guffawing. Kurt is looking at him as if he’s gone mad. Blaine lifts his chin just a little higher and continues, undeterred. “I understand that, due to circumstances beyond your control, you’re forced to make do with what you can take off of strangers you encounter in the woods. I know you don’t truly mean us harm. If we work together, I’m sure we can find a satisfactory solution to all of our problems without resorting to violence.”

The man – their leader, Blaine presumes – shakes his head in bemusement.

“You’re free to go, lad. I’d get started if I were you, lest we run out of patience.”

Okay, then. It seems a change in tactic would be advisable.

“In that case, I insist you return my property to me at once,” he says, thinking fast. There is a chorus of scornful laughter, but their leader seems more amused at his audacity. “And since you deprive me of my guide, I demand a horse as well.”

The man glances wryly up at the rock formation. “Not much of a guide, is he?”

Blaine doesn’t take the bait. He holds his head high. The man grins, and relents.

“Alright, then. You can have anything you can carry,” he says, eyeing Blaine’s slight build. He doesn’t know that Blaine has been doing the work of a field laborer since the age of nine.

“Do I have your word on that?”

“On my honor as a gypsy. Whatever you can carry.”

Blaine doesn’t tarry. He walks straight over to Kurt and lifts him easily onto his back. He drops the best bow he can manage to the gypsy leader and heads straight to the path that leads to the castle. There is laughter all around them, many of the gypsies doubling over in mirth.

“Wait! Please, come back!” calls their leader through his own chortling. “Come back, I’ll give you a horse!”

They do better than that. They invite Blaine and Kurt to take supper with them, too, clearly so delighted with Blaine’s antics that they’ve forgiven whatever grudge they held against Kurt.

“They stole a painting, one of Signora Pierce’s,” Kurt explains, under his breath. “I managed to recover it.”

He puffs his chest up a little, obviously proud of the accomplishment. It’s adorable.

It isn’t long before they reach the gypsies’ campsite. They gather around the fire to eat their meal and drink cheap ale from mugs of dubious cleanliness. The gypsies treat them like brethren, teaching them songs so bawdy they’re left blushing even to hear the words, much less sing along. They tell stories so outlandish that Blaine is almost positive they’re made-up. And still, Blaine is sure he’s never laughed so much in all of his life.

He and Kurt slowly break away from the group as the night wears on. It happens naturally, the two of them absorbing themselves in each other. Soon enough, they’re cocooned together in borrowed blankets and completely unaware of the men still talking and laughing all around them. Kurt is loose and warm with ale, his smile unselfconscious as they laugh themselves hoarse over a silly childhood hand game. He turns out to be very competitive once his inbred chivalry has been stripped away.

“You cheated! You must have. You’ve clearly cultivated the power to read my mind.”

“Rules are rules, your Highness. It’s your turn. You’d better make it good.”

He winks for effect, and Kurt grins at him. He thinks for a moment, then bites his lip, the smile starting to bleed out of his eyes. “Truth time?” Blaine nods encouragingly, leaning closer in a semi-conscious show of compassion. Kurt draws in a deep breath. “I have no desire to be king. I never have.”

Blaine blinks. He wasn’t expecting that.

“Oh, but…think of all the wonderful things you could do – for your country, for the world.”

“Yes, but to be so defined by your position – to be stuck in a life you feel no passion for, to never be seen as who you are, but what you are. You have no idea how insufferable that is.”

“You might be surprised.” It slips out, bitter and unbidden.

“Really?”

Blaine flounders, horrified that he let himself forget even for a moment the secret he’s been keeping.

“A – a gypsy, for example, is rarely painted as anything but a swindling scoundrel, but that is not who they are. They are limited by their status just as much as you are by your title. And yet, they still seem to find room for passion in their lives.” He glances at the lot of them, smiling wryly. They’ve broken into song again.

Kurt narrows his eyes.

“They, at least, are free.”

“And you were born to privilege. With that comes specific obligations.” There is a moment, then, when Kurt’s expression is unreadable. Not blank, not exactly, but suddenly closed off. Blaine considers what he just said. He ducks his head – it was terribly impertinent. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m afraid my mouth has run away with me again.”

Kurt smiles, the emotion suddenly clear in his eyes. “Don’t be,” he says softly. “It is your mouth that has me hypnotized.”

Blaine’s heart races. Kurt is so close, and so lovely, and so very brave. It isn’t easy for him to open his heart, and still, he’s doing it for Blaine. Blaine leans closer, and so does Kurt, and then they’re kissing. It’s soft, at first, and sweet, and then Blaine is grasping Kurt’s face and Kurt is sliding his hand through Blaine’s hair, and they’re pulling each other close as can be. It’s a relief to allow their bodies to take what their hearts have been yearning for.

Suddenly, Blaine is jolted to attention by a raucous round of cheers. He and Kurt break apart, and they laugh, flushing, to see the gypsies clapping, stomping, and yelling their approval. They thread their hands together and don’t let go.

It’s nearly dawn by the time they return to the manor. Blaine is supposed to be awake and starting his day’s chores in less than an hour. He has Kurt stop before they reach the gates. “I don’t want to wake anyone,” he says, and it’s perfectly true. He just doesn’t explain why.

He unclasps his hands from around Kurt’s narrow waist to allow him to dismount, already missing the feel of Kurt’s body pressed tight against his. Kurt offers a hand to help him down. Blaine takes it with a fond smile. He hops down, lets himself be pulled to Kurt, so close he has to tip his chin slightly up to maintain eye contact. They kiss again, lush and slow. Kurt’s gaze is heavy when he pulls back, his cheeks bright with color. Blaine himself feels a tad light-headed.

“You saved my life, you know,” murmurs Kurt. “Back there in the woods.”

Blaine smiles.

“It was my pleasure, your Highness.”

“Kurt.”

“Kurt,” echoes Blaine. His voice sounds dreamy, even to his own ears. Kurt grins, and kisses him again.

“Good night,” he says.

“Good night.”

They stand there for one last moment, drinking in the sight of each other, before Blaine turns to go.

“Nicolas!” calls Kurt, and Blaine’s heart positively drops. What he would give to hear his name on Kurt’s lips… He turns back to Kurt, smile fixed firmly to his face.

“Yes?”

Kurt looks strangely nervous.

“Do you know the ruins at Amboise?”

“I do.”

“I often go there to be alone. Would you meet me there tomorrow?”

Kurt looks so earnest, Blaine couldn’t dream of denying him.

“I shall try.”

“Then I shall wait all day.”

Blaine’s smile blooms all over his face – he can’t help it. It doesn’t matter that this is impossible, that the only way for this to end is with two broken hearts, because Blaine is in love. There’s no denying it, no denying Kurt. This is the happiest he’s felt since he was eight years old, and his world changed forever. He isn’t ready to let it go.


	3. Once Upon a Time

Blaine watches, helpless, as his stepmother, stepbrother, and stepsister parade their finery in front of him. They seem to pay him no heed, but Blaine knows. They take pleasure in provoking his envy. They climb up into the carriage and speed away, laughing too merrily to be entirely real.

Blaine is left there in the drive, alone, dressed in rags that have become filthy with the day’s dirt and soot and grease. He shouldn’t have let his hopes be lifted. He should know better than that. His stepfamily is never going to love him, or treat him with any more respect than they do the dirt they track all over their freshly-polished floors. They’re never going to give him the slightest chance at a way out.

Off in the distance, the fireworks are starting. Blaine watches wistfully, and wishes.

“Don’t be sad,” says a voice from behind him. Blaine turns with a start. He gapes. There’s a – a _fairy_ floating toward him. She’s small and blonde and dreamy-eyed, and she’s glowing gold from head to toe. Her wings flap lazily behind her. “You’re totally going to the ball.”

“Wha – who are you?” he asks cautiously.

“Oh, right,” she says, and then there’s a puff of sparkly smoke, and she’s standing full-sized in front of him. She’s beautiful, in a strange, ethereal kind of way. “I’m your fairy godmother. I’m here to change your life.”

She waggles her eyebrows. Blaine doesn’t quite know what to make of her.

“But – but my stepmother, she told me I couldn’t go. She forbade me to leave.”

She looks at him like he’s the crazy one.

“Why are you listening to _her_? She’s mean, and a bully, and you shouldn’t stand for it.”

Blaine blinks.

“You make it sound so simple.”

“Well, maybe it can be. With this.”

She produces something out of thin air – a wand, glowing gold just like the rest of her. Blaine’s spirits life. He feels…hope. Maybe this is the chance he’s been waiting for, to escape, to find love, to see the world and discover beauty in it. Maybe wishes really can come true.

“This wand,” she continues, “has the power to take you to your ball, to your unicorn prince, and to a n – ”

There’s a terrible sound, like the cracking of thunder, and then she’s disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, mouth open in an ‘o’ of surprise. Her wand clatters to the cobblestone drive.

Oh, god. Is she dead? Did Blaine just watch a fairy die, right in front of him?

A man appears before Blaine can do anything more than cover his mouth in horror. He’s crouched down, grasping the wand like it’s precious, and Blaine can put two and two together.

“What did you _do_?”

The man looks up, a sly smirk twisting his mouth. There’s something…not right about him. His skin is a weird, reptilian green-gold. His eyes seem huge, swallowed completely by a color just a few shades darker than his skin. They sheen with madness. He rises to his full height, long and lanky and towering above Blaine. He steps closer.

“Now, now. I got what I wanted. No need to be afraid.”

“No need? You just killed someone!”

“A fairy,” he scoffs.

“A person.”

“Whatever. It’s done.” The man – the creature? – eyes Blaine carefully, gaze flickering up and down and back again. Blaine holds himself tall and proud. If this is how he’s to meet his end, he refuses to cower before it. The man just waves him off dismissively. “Now I suggest you go back to whatever floor you were sweeping before Ditzy von Twinkletoes fluttered her way into your life.”

Blaine bristles. The fairy was odd, perhaps, but kind. Worthy of respect.

“She was my fairy godmother,” he says. “She was trying to help me.”

That seems to spark the man’s interest. “Was she?” He steps closer, and closer still, until he’s just out of Blaine’s reach. He holds up the wand in one reverent hand. He leans in. “Do you know what this is?” he asks, smirk deepening.

He would probably be handsome if his eyes were less cold.

Blaine shifts his gaze to the wand, admires the way it seems to shimmer and glow from within. It holds power that he can only imagine.

“Pure magic,” he breathes.

“Pure evil. Trust me, I’ve done you a favor. All magic comes with a price. Now, go back to your life and thank your lucky stars that you have something to go back to.”

The advice is sensible enough. But Blaine can’t follow it.

He’s tasted it now, the hope of something better. He’s sick of being alone and unloved in his own home, tired of putting up with abuse out of loyalty to a man who’s been dead for ten years. He’s done letting his stepfamily have control over his life.

He’s done wishing.

“I can’t. My life, it’s…wretched.”

“Then change it,” says the man impatiently.

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

The man’s eyebrows lift. He laughs incredulously.

“You can’t handle this, killer,” he says, stroking one finger up the wand, from base to tip. And then, with one final smirk, he turns to walk away.

Blaine can’t let that happen. The man is wrong, he has to be, because that magic is good. He can feel it. His fairy godmother meant for it to help him. He runs to head the man off.

“Wait!” he calls. “I _can_ handle it. Please, just give me a chance. I will do anything to get out of here. Anything.”

He pleads with his eyes, wills the man to feel some small amount of compassion for his plight. The man stares at him a moment. His nostrils flare.

“Anything?”

His tone is soft, and dangerous, and Blaine knows he should rethink this.

He doesn’t.

“Do you know how to use that wand, Mr. …?”

The man bows mockingly.

“Rumplestiltskin. And yes,” he hisses. “Of course I do.”

“Then _help_ me.”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes glint. He circles Blaine, calculating.

“Well, if I do, and you can indeed shoulder the consequences…then you’ll owe me a favor.”

That makes the alarm bells ring. Blaine narrows his eyes.

“What kind of favor?”

“Nothing you _can’t handle_ , I’m sure.”

“What do you want?”

Rumplestiltskin stops. He looks at Blaine, something hungry and wanting glimmering beneath the surface of his smile. He leans in, close and deliberate. His breath is warm against Blaine’s ear.

“Something…precious,” he murmurs.

Blaine’s stomach drops.

“I have nothing,” he whispers.

Rumplestiltskin trails a finger down Blaine’s cheek. It’s cool and dry, as if his body doesn’t give off heat. He smirks.

“Not for long. This life, your new life, comes complete with riches beyond your wildest imagination.”

Blaine feels like laughing. Is that all?

“I care nothing for riches. You can have whatever you want. Just – get me out of here.”

Rumplestiltskin’s smile is triumphant, almost giddy.

“Now we’re talking.”

“So, how does it work?”

“It’s simple. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line.”

He snaps his fingers, and a scroll appears with a puff of purple smoke. It’s long, and written in an elegant, looping scrawl that’s near impossible to read. He holds a quill in his other hand.

“Do we have a deal?” he asks. His tone is light, but his smile is shark-eyed and his body coiled tight as a cobra ready to spring.

Blaine hesitates.

“I have to read what I’m signing first,” he says.

Rumplestiltskin looks slightly taken aback. He covers it with a smile.

“Be my guest. But you’d better hurry, or the prince will find someone else to dance with.”

Blaine takes that for the warning it is. The deal will only last as long as Rumplestiltskin’s patience.

He takes the scroll and reads carefully, detangling the old-fashioned legal language as best he can. It’s actually pretty straightforward. He looks up.

“I don’t understand. What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch.”

“What if I can’t provide the favor you require?”

“Trust me, that won’t be a problem.”

That is the problem, actually – Blaine doesn’t trust him. He considers his options. He’s a country boy with no friends, no family, and nothing to his name but the clothing on his back. He has no useful skills, unless you count singing for an audience of apathetic field mice, and Blaine certainly does not. He could run away, tonight, while he’s free from his stepmother’s watchful gaze. He could steal from her coffers and live as an outlaw, like the inimitable Snow White, or he could sing for his supper in the streets. He could stay here and see if he can’t win those field mice over.

That’s it, that’s enough dithering. Blaine is resolved. No matter how he starts it, his story ends the same way: alone, destitute, trapped by his circumstances. Rumplestiltskin’s intentions may not be kind, but at least he’s giving Blaine a chance.

Maybe his only chance.

It’s a risk that Blaine is willing to take.

Blaine holds out his hand for the quill.

“We have a deal,” he says firmly.

Rumplestiltskin slowly smiles. He hands over the quill and takes the scroll from Blaine’s hands. He drapes it over his strong back, forcing Blaine to bend slightly over to sign at the bottom. He does so, with a flourish, and immediately feels his heart lift.

This is really happening. He’s taking control of his life. It’s the best feeling in the world.

Rumplestiltskin eyes him critically, almost…lasciviously, then waves the wand. That same purple smoke creeps up Blaine’s body, transforming his filthy rags into garments so fine the prince himself would wear them to a ball. And his Highness is reputed to have impeccable taste.

There are dove gray trousers that fit so well as to be a second skin, tucked into supple leather boots accented with buckles and a short heel made of…

“Glass?”

“Every story needs a memorable detail,” drawls Rumplestiltskin.

His jacket is sky blue, picked out with delicate silver threads that sparkle in the light. To Blaine’s delight, the buttons are in the shape of tiny silver canaries, beaks open to warble a tune.

“How did you know?” he asks in awe. It couldn’t be more perfectly him if he’d designed it himself.

The mirth drains out of Rumplestiltskin’s face. He swallows.

“The mice are not the only creatures who have heard you sing.”

Blaine is unable to respond, unable to do anything but gape.

Rumplestiltskin recovers his composure first.

“Now let’s get you to your ball,” he says. “Just remember to watch the clock.”


	4. Into the Woods

Blaine runs off stage right, laughter following him from the audience. It warms his heart – this may only be a student-run production, but they’ve managed to fill the house every night, and each audience is more responsive than the last. By all accounts, it’s the Sondheim Society’s most successful project yet.

Kurt is there in the wings, waiting for his entrance cue. He’s in his end-of-Act-One costume, looking particularly gorgeous. He grins at Blaine and pounces on him for a tight hug.

“You were perfect,” he says, voice carefully backstage-low. “I’m so proud of you.”

Blaine _glows_.

“You saw?”

“I had Melinda finish my make-up from the wings. I didn’t want to miss your big solo on closing night.”

A lump of emotion forms in his throat.

“ _Kurt_.”

“It’s not like I’ll ever get another chance to see my handsome fiancé playing Cinderella.”

“I don’t know, maybe Broadway will catch on to gender-blind casting.”

Kurt hums his agreement. “I wish. I would kill for a chance at Elphaba.”

Blaine laughs. “I don’t know, I seem to recall someone complaining pretty bitterly about the toll that heavy stage make-up takes on your skin.”

“I’d dry out my T-zone and break out in pimples every day if it meant I got to sing Defying Gravity in front of a sold-out Broadway audience.”

“Of course. And you’d be so glorious that no one would even notice your dried-out, acne-ridden skin.”

Kurt smiles at him, wide and sweet. He glances at the action on stage, checking in. They’ve still got time. He steps closer.

“You know what this play is missing?” he murmurs into Blaine’s ear. The intimate tone of it sends a shiver up Blaine’s spine. He smiles and closes his eyes.

“What’s that?”

“A scene at the ball.”

Blaine frowns.

“I don’t know if that really fits with the tone of the piece, to be honest.”

“Blaine?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m asking you to dance.”

“Oh. Well, in that case.”

Blaine steps back, just far enough to arrange himself in formal hold. Kurt pauses.

“Why don’t you lead?” he says. “Everyone knows you’re the Prince Charming in this story.”

“I don’t know about that,” says Blaine, but he concedes, sliding his right hand around to the small of Kurt’s back.

He’s always related to Cinderella – Sondheim’s version, at least. Torn between something safe that she knows will never make her happy and something so wonderful it scares her. Worried that her prince will no longer want her when she lets him see who she really is. He jumped at the chance when Kurt told him about the auditions, eyes bright with the manic light of someone who’s been told he has a chance at a part originated by Bernadette Peters.

“I do,” says Kurt now, with a small, knowing smile. “You’ve made me feel like Cinderella at the ball every day since the moment we met.”

Blaine kisses him tenderly, touched, and leads them in a box step – a tiny one, as there’s really only so far they can move before they’ve crossed into audience sightlines. He steps carefully, wary of Kurt’s pointy-toed shoes. They’re about a size and a half too big, but Kurt insisted they were perfect for the look and refused to consider something more practical. He even spent an entire Saturday evening lovingly affixing miniature crystals to the toes, “enhancing the drama,” as he called it. Blaine is just happy that Kurt has made it this far without tripping over the edge of the stage.

Christina the stage manager keeps shooting them looks of annoyance. Blaine makes a mental note to run out and get her flowers before tonight’s cast party.

Kurt starts humming, just loudly enough for Blaine to hear. He doesn’t need to sing the words, because Blaine’s brain supplies them automatically.

_Ten minutes I saw you,_

_I looked up when you came through the door,_

_My head started reeling,_

_You gave me the feeling_

_The room had no ceiling or floor_

“I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong show,” he whispers in Kurt’s ear. Kurt smiles and shuffles closer, resting his cheek against Blaine’s. Blaine resists nuzzling his nose into Kurt’s hair, mindful of mussing Melinda’s careful work. They slow, until they’re really just swaying back and forth in each other’s arms.

Christina clears her throat next to them, unimpressed.

Kurt lifts his head, but otherwise stays right where he is.

“We’re about ten seconds from your entrance, Hummel. Thought you might want to know.”

Blaine loosens his hold reluctantly, and Kurt slips out of his arms.

“How do I look?” he says, preening.

“Like the star of Alexander McQueen’s 2014 spring collection runway show.”

Kurt’s expression melts into something unspeakably tender. He reaches up to finger one of the feathers that have been fixed into his sky-high, sexy-messy hair.

“Aw, thanks, sweetie,” he coos, and pecks Blaine on the lips.

Christina flashes him an impatient hand signal, looking just about ready to march over and manhandle him to his mark. Kurt hurriedly grabs his staff from the props table and throws his oversized hood over his head. Blaine cringes in sympathy for his hair. He hears Kurt’s cue, just the second Kurt does, apparently, because he’s running for his entrance before Blaine has a chance to tell him to break a leg.

Kurt makes it to the top of the stairs just exactly on time for his line, but the burst of adrenaline from rushing causes him to stumble as he makes his way down. After a precarious moment, when Blaine’s heart just about stops and his head swims with sick visions of broken necks and cracked skulls, Kurt rights himself and continues, so smoothly that it probably didn’t even register to the audience.

There’s something off about his gait, though, after that. His cloak is long enough to cover his feet, so Blaine can’t be sure, but it looks like he’s favoring his right foot. Oh, god, he rolled his ankle, didn’t he? Blaine wishes he could see Kurt’s face, check for other signs of pain. He knows it must be pretty bad if he’s actually limping on stage.

Blaine thinks frantically through what he knows about ankle injuries – ice it, rest it, x-ray if the pain is really bad. Kurt definitely shouldn’t be putting his weight on it at all, much less performing an entire second act. Blaine is about to go to Christina with his concerns when he sees her covering her mouth, shoulders shaking with muffled laughter. Protective anger surges through him, and he’s ready to march over there and give her a sternly-worded lecture about taking pleasure in other people’s pain when she catches his eye. She glances pointedly up at the staircase. Blaine follows her line of vision and sees exactly what she’s laughing about.

He snorts. He can’t help it.

There, on the steps, is one of Kurt’s too-big, bedazzled shoes, shining for all the world like it’s made of glass.


	5. Ella Enchanted

“Tina!” shouts Blaine, half-crazed in his panic. “Tina, come quick!”

Tina rushes out of the pantry, brow furrowed worriedly.

“What is it? What’s happened? Wha – why are you only wearing one shoe?”

“I – I don’t know, I must have lost it somewhere. That’s not the point. I’ve put Kurt in danger again, and all of McKinley, too! What do I do?”

Tina takes hold of his arm and steers him to a stool.

“Let’s just take this one step at a time, shall we? What happened, exactly?”

She watches intently as he tells her, growing graver by the second. He tells her about the dances, and how well they connected, even though Blaine knew they shouldn’t, knew exactly the risk he was taking, being so himself. He just…couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stand there and know exactly how to make Kurt smile that big, beautiful smile of his and not act on it. It was foolish of him to think that he could.

He tells her about meeting the king and queen, and about Kurt’s vow.

“I never plan to marry,” Kurt said – or, well, confessed – and there was such bitterness, such sorrow in his eyes that Blaine put there and would do anything to take away. It was all Blaine could do not to throw off his mask and make his own confession.

He tells her about Hunter. He tells her how naked he felt the moment his mask slipped away, and how his stomach dropped right to the floor. He tells her how he ran out of the palace and all the way home, because Brittany’s magic expired just exactly as she described, and there was nothing waiting for him but a giant pumpkin and a few white mice.

He feels no better for getting it out. If anything, he feels worse, having relived his own stupidity and felt, once again, the very moment he knew his heart had broken.

Tina doesn’t waste time with reassurances.

“Pack your things,” she says, and Blaine immediately feels the tug to obey.

“Where will I go?”

“I’ll come with you. We’ll find work as cooks or – or tailors, or minstrels, I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. Hurry.”

Blaine runs to his room, starts throwing things into an old carpet bag. It won’t take long – he doesn’t have much.

He hears the door open downstairs, and the murmur of voices. He stops, closes his eyes. They’ll never make it out now. He wrestles off his jacket and trousers, made no less fine by his desperate run home, and throws on his tattered servants’ wear. He rubs a sooty sleeve across his cheek and runs his fingers through his hair until it’s loose and curling over his forehead. It’s not a disguise, but it’s something, at least.

Marley appears at his door, twisting her fingers nervously. “It’s the prince,” she says. “He wants to see everyone.”

Blaine doesn’t move.

Marley giggles and holds out her hand. “He won’t eat us. At least, I hope not. Come on!”

Blaine follows her. He has no choice. His mind races, trying to find a subterfuge that will save them all. His heart drums against his ribs.

Kurt and his company of knights and ladies are in the hall, watching carefully as the entire household filters in. Blaine slips behind the tallest manservant, grateful, for once, for his slight stature, but Kurt and his company are soon walking amongst them. Blaine ducks his head and turns away, desperately hoping that the appearance of bashfulness will deter them from looking too closely.

Lady Rachel is the one who finds him.

“Here is a young man,” she calls, voice carrying clear as a bell above the buzz of chatter. She pulls Blaine forward by the wrist, and the room falls silent. All eyes are on him. He feels a spike of shame at allowing Kurt to see him like this, in filthy rags, with his hair a mess. It’s stupid and silly, considering what is at stake, but he can’t help it.

Kurt rushes to him.

“Blaine! Blaine, why are you dressed like that?” It’s concern coloring his voice, not disdain, and Blaine suddenly feels himself on the verge of tears. He can’t meet Kurt’s eyes.

“Your Highness, I – ” he starts, pitching his voice lower, but he knows that any doubts Kurt had as to his identity have been resolved on hearing him speak.

Fortunately, Hunter steps in, all too eager to aid and abet Blaine’s deception.

“That’s just Cinders, the scullion,” he says, with an oily smile. “Sire, would you care for a refreshment, now that you’re here?”

Blaine could kick him. Hunter doesn’t even feel the remotest attraction for men, but he would wed the prince in a trice. He’s a power-hungry meathead who doesn’t deserve to lick Kurt’s Daltonian leather boots.

Kurt furrows his brow. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of Blaine’s face.

“He’s a scullion?”

“Yes, a scullion, no one of account. Our cook, Tina, however, makes cakes fit for a prince.”

Hunter flutters his eyelashes in what Blaine assumes is an attempt at flirtation. Kurt glances at him, bemused.

There’s a door close enough for Blaine to slip through if he’s quick enough. He tries to pull his hand away, but Lady Rachel has a stronger grip than he expected, and his attempt catches the attention of Kurt’s company. Sir Finn moves to block the door.

Kurt takes Blaine’s other hand, causing Rachel to let go and step away. Their fingers fit together just as well as they always have, and Blaine takes in a deep, shuddering breath. He wants to kiss him so very badly.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Kurt is saying. His tone is soft, cautious, like he’s worried Blaine will spook. “I promise. Whatever they’ve done to you, it’s over. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

Oh, but they can. And there’s nothing Kurt can do to stop it.

Kurt produces a shoe from somewhere, Blaine’s shoe that he should never have worn, because of course Kurt’s recognized it. A shoe made of glass is difficult to forget.

“This shoe belonged to Blaine,” says Kurt, more loudly. “It will fit no one but him, whether he is a scullion or a duke.”

Blaine curses his stupid, tiny fairy feet. Why couldn’t his fairy blood give him the ability to disappear into thin air instead?

“Oh, that’s my shoe!” says Hunter, with poorly-acted surprise. “I’m always losing it because it keeps slipping off my foot.” He giggles girlishly.

“Your feet are too big,” blurts Sugar. “My feet are tiny, and awesome.”

Kurt ignores that. He looks at Hunter, unimpressed.

“Try it,” he says flatly.

Hunter has a brief moment of uncertainty, to his credit, but bravado soon takes over. He makes a show of taking off his own shoe, the pungent odor more familiar to Blaine than he would like, and makes a valiant attempt. He can barely wedge his toes in.

“Ooh! My turn!” trills Sugar.

“It’s a men’s shoe,” grits out Hunter.

“So? I bet it totally fits me.”

She sticks out her lower lip in a pout and makes those obnoxious grabby fingers of hers, but Kurt only stares at her incredulously.

“I feel like I’m in crazytown,” he mutters. “Has no one ever said no to you?”

Sugar blinks. “No.”

Blaine bites his lip against a laugh. He sobers soon enough, though, because Kurt turns to him, shoe in hand and a look of devastating hope on his face.

Blaine reluctantly removes his shoe, the too-big shoe whose toes he has to stuff. Kurt smiles at him reassuringly and guides the glass shoe onto his foot. It fits perfectly, of course.

Blaine feels a wave of despair wash over him. Kurt must be able to see it, because he stiffens. He takes Blaine’s hand again, and squeezes.

“You don’t have to be Blaine if you don’t want to be,” he says.

Blaine can see how much it pains him to say it, how much it costs him.

“I’m not,” chokes out Blaine. Tears spill over and slip down his cheeks, in spite of his very best efforts. Kurt takes Blaine’s face in his hands and wipes away his tears with trembling thumbs. Blaine looks into his eyes, for the first time since he left the palace at a run. He’s so beautiful, so…hopeful, still. Blaine lets out a sob.

Realization dawns over Kurt’s face.

“That letter was a lie, a trick. I know it was.” He sends an icy-cold glare to Hunter, then re-focuses his attention on Blaine. “Tell me how you really feel,” he says urgently. It’s an order. “Do you love me?”

“I do,” whispers Blaine. He feels as much relief to say it as he does grief. He just wishes he could enjoy Kurt’s look of elation.

“Then marry me,” says Kurt, as if it’s simple.

Another order.

Blaine nods. The tears are still streaming, unstoppable, down his cheeks.

“Don’t marry him, Blaine,” says Hunter immediately, giving away Blaine’s identity once and for all.

Blaine musters up the strength to pull away. Maybe Hunter’s selfishness will be what saves them.

“I can’t,” says Blaine, through the painful lump in his throat.

“Hunter, don’t be an idiot,” snaps Mama Sue. “Don’t you want to be stepbrother to the king’s consort and make him give you whatever you want?” She smiles dangerously at Blaine. “His Highness is kind enough to want to marry you, Blaine.”

It’s starting, just as Blaine knew it would. The curse will make Sue and Hunter as powerful as they’ve ever dreamed, and it will give Sugar endless wealth. It will turn Blaine into a weapon.

Kurt is looking at him like the key to his life’s happiness rests in Blaine’s hands. He doesn’t realize that Blaine also holds the key to his destruction. A dagger in his back, poison in his wine glass, a push right off the edge of the castle’s tallest parapet. State secrets, penned in Blaine’s hand, delivered in the dead of night to McKinley’s greatest enemy.

“Marry me, Blaine,” breathes Kurt. “Say that you’ll marry me.”

It isn’t a royal command, issued by the crown prince. It’s just Kurt and Blaine. Blaine wishes to the stars and back that he could say no, like anyone else in the world. He wishes his yes could be his choice. He wouldn’t hesitate, then, would listen to his heart and his soul and his body, all straining desperately for Kurt, and he’d sing it from the rooftops.

But it isn’t his choice, and it won’t ever be. He can’t say yes, can’t give in. Kurt is too precious to harm, too precious to marry, too precious to betray, too precious to obey.

The words rise up like bile – _yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you, please, yes_ – but Blaine bites his tongue, and he swallows them right back down to his roiling stomach. He’s starting to go dizzy, and his head is starting to pound, but it doesn’t matter. The complaints of his body have never mattered less.

He feels a hand on his shoulder – Kurt, looking deeply alarmed. Blaine can’t find it in himself to reassure him, can’t open his mouth without risking it all. His vision blurs, and he closes his eyes, attention turned to the battle within.

He remembers it all, remembers every single order he’s ever been given, every moment of fear, and rage, and helplessness. He can see it now – Brittany, smiling beatifically at Blaine, no more than a newborn wailing in her arms, “My gift to Blaine is obedience.” Tina, ordering him offhandedly to eat his birthday cake. His father, looking at him the way he looks at merchandise, “You’re no good to me here. You’ll go to military school with Sue’s brat and make connections that may actually be of use to me.” Hunter, forbidding him to be friends with Sam. SEEf the ogre smirking down at him, “No need to sing this one to sleep, friends. It’ll cook itself if we tell it to.” He can see Sue standing over him while he scrubs the courtyard until his hands are cracked and bleeding, Sugar counting his coins, Hunter watching him with beady eyes as Blaine pushes his own mother’s pianoforte into Hunter’s bedchamber.

He’s been a puppet his entire life. He ate the cake, did push-ups until his arms gave out, left Sam without so much as a goodbye. He slaved for his stepmother, gave up the piano, let Sugar suck him dry. He let other people control his life, his decisions, his body, let them take whatever they wanted.

He won’t let them have this. They can’t have Kurt.

Be obedient. End this. Listen to your heart and say _yes, yes, yes_.

There’s pain in his head, and his stomach, and pain in his tongue from biting it so hard. It feels as if his throat is being ripped to shreds – it dawns on him that he’s sobbing, the sound of it muffled through his clamped-shut jaw.

He opens his mouth. Oh, god. He can’t stop it.

He claps a hand over his mouth and snaps it shut, the force of it scraping his teeth against his tongue so hard that it bleeds. His yes is trapped.

He thinks of Kurt. He remembers seeing him at Blaine’s mother’s funeral, solemn and compassionate, remembers joining their voices in a quiet song of mourning that made Blaine feel even better than crying his eyes out under the weeping tree. He remembers standing together in the low light of the Royal Fashion Museum’s exotic fabrics exhibit, Kurt’s eyes lit up warm as he promised to make Blaine a bow tie out of gnomic silk. He remembers Kurt binding SEEf’s feet, eyeing the ogre with disgust even as he dealt his knights a sharp tongue-lashing. “They can’t help their nature. They deserve to be treated humanely.” He remembers Kurt’s wit, his terrible, wonderful jokes that no one laughed at but him, his acerbic assessment of Blaine’s doltish military school peers. He remembers Kurt’s full-bodied laughter, high and delirious, as they danced in a storage closet to music they made up on the spot, remembers the color in his cheeks and the luster in his eyes, the flop of his hair over his forehead as the exertion shook it from its style. He remembers Kurt’s failed attempts to regain his dignity when the door flew open to reveal Blaine’s father. He remembers Kurt’s kindness to a lad of no account, attending his first ball. He remembers King Burt, smiling at his son, the hope and future of McKinley.

Blaine wants so badly to say yes. Say yes and live, say yes and be happy. Obey. Say yes. _Marry him_.

No. No, no, no, no, _no_.

He loses the sense of it, then. The feeling, it’s too big for words. It rocks him back and forth, the yes ready to burst through his skin, and the force of his will pushing it back. He rears forward and reels back, a ship trying to resist the inexorable pull of the tides. It’s only a matter of time before the curse will take him over. He’s holding on to control of his own body by the barest thread.

 _No_.

He digs in his heels, sinks further inside himself. He searches blindly for some sort of anchor, something – anything – to hold on to. He finds it, buried deep down beneath everything, beyond the pain and the chaos and all the white noise.

The single, solitary truth.

He doesn’t need magic to break the curse. He never has. He holds the power to save Kurt, save himself, save everyone. He just has to believe it.

He takes a moment to breathe with the knowledge, let it live in his bones. He gathers every ounce of the determination he’s forged over long years of necessity, finds a strength he’s never needed for a lesser cause. He feels it sing through him. He finds his voice.

“No!” he cries, eyes flying open. “No, I won’t marry you, I won’t do it. No one can force me.”

He leaps to his feet, ready to defy anyone.

“Who would force you?” says Kurt, shocked.

“It doesn’t matter who. They can’t make me, no one can. I won’t marry you.”

Sugar laughs. “He’ll marry you. You told him to, so he has to listen. Marry him, Blaine, and give me all your gold!”

“No! Stop ordering me to!”

He feels elated, invigorated. He did it. He feels wild with it. Kurt will live, he can _live_ and prosper and be happy.

Now, though, he just looks confused.

“He doesn’t have to marry me if he doesn’t want to,” he says to Sugar, plainly. He’s trying to hide his hurt, but he can’t, not from Blaine. Blaine wants to go to him, kiss him, reassure him that it isn’t what he thinks, whatever that is.

“Yes, Sugar, do hush,” cuts in Hunter. “Blaine, go to your room. His Highness can have no further need of you.” He throws Kurt a simpering smile.

“I have great need of him,” says Kurt indignantly.

“You hush, Hunter. I don’t want to go to my room.” Blaine gives into his instinct, and he throws his arms around Kurt, who doesn’t look particularly unhappy about it. He kisses Kurt square on the lips, and he beams at him. “I won’t marry you,” he says dreamily, because it’s the most romantic thing he can think of, not marrying the prince. Some part of him is aware that he must seem touched.

“Go to your room!” barks Hunter, and he’s probably turned red as a brick, the vein in his forehead popping. Blaine doesn’t know for sure, because he can’t take his eyes off of his love, who is more his than ever.

Kurt ignores Hunter, too.

“Why won’t you marry me?” he asks carefully. “Why not, if you love me?”

“I’m cursed. You would never be safe if you married me.”

Blaine breathes in sharply. It’s the first time he’s said the words since he was eight years old and Santana Lopez ordered him to lose their supposed-to-be-friendly singing contest. They’d gotten into a bitter argument that ended when Tina caught Santana shouting, “Go stick your head in a blackberry bramble!” His mother issued one of her rare orders, after that, and forbid him from telling anyone else.

Did someone order him to tell? His memory of the last ten minutes is fuzzy, but he knows that no one did. So how, then, did he…

He takes stock of himself. He feels…lighter, more whole, as if all the disparate, conflicting parts of himself have been united. There’s nothing left to fight, nothing weighing him down.

He feels as if he’s sprouted wings.

“You’re free, Blainey,” says Tina, suddenly at his side. “You’ve done it. You’ve broken the curse.” She’s crying she’s so happy, the tears streaming, unheeded, down her face. Blaine breaks away from Kurt and lets her throw her arms around him. He squeezes back just as tight. “You rescued yourself,” she says in his ear. “I’m so proud of you.”

It’s over. Forever. He belongs to himself, and only himself. His choices are his.

He wipes at his face, probably leaving behind streaks of soot, and turns back to Kurt, who’s looking at him with something like awe. He has a wet spot on his nose from Blaine’s soggy cheeks. Blaine drops into a bow.

“Kurt,” he says, savoring the feel of it on his tongue. “When you asked for my hand a few minutes ago, it still wasn’t mine to give.” Kurt laughs helplessly at the reminder of their letters, and the feeble joke that carried them through their longing. _Today, it belongs to Rolf, our gardener’s golden retriever, who spent so long licking it I feared it would turn into a paw._ Blaine kneels down on one knee. “Now that I have it back, all I want to do is offer it to you. I’ve known since the first time we touched that our hands were meant to hold each other, fearlessly and forever. Will you – ”

Kurt doesn’t let him finish. “Yes,” he breathes, and he pulls Blaine into a kiss.

Blaine smiles into it. He can’t help it.

This must be what flying feels like.

&&&&&

And they lived happily ever after.


End file.
